BUT DO THEY REALLY LIKE EACH OTHER? : PERRY, HAYEK FIGHT RUMORS AND TELL SECRETS ABOUT DOING `FOOLS RUSH IN'.

Byline: Bob Strauss Daily News Film Writer

The old opposites-attract thing gets a real workout in ``Fools Rush In,'' the new romantic comedy starring ``Friends' '' Matthew Perry and Salma Hayek, the actress who made such an arresting impression in ``Desperado'' and ``From Dusk Till Dawn.''

He plays self-contained executive Alex Whitman, in Las Vegas to supervise the construction of an ultra-posh nightclub for his New York firm. She's Isabel Fuentes, who takes snapshots at Caesar's for a living, but whose real ambition is to publish a photo book of the desert she's loved all her life.

He comes from an emotionally stunted, East Coast WASP background. She has plentiful and passionate family roots in Vegas and rural Mexico. They meet at a moment of mutual emotional confusion, have a one-night stand and, a few weeks later, find themselves pregnant, married and wondering what the heck they've gotten into, all in record time. Comedy and crying ensue as the mismatched couple struggles to get to know each other.

When rumors fly

It's the same basic plot as hundreds of romantic stories that have gone before it, not to mention a fictionalized version of what really happened to two of ``Fools Rush In's'' producers, Doug Draizin and Anna Maria Davis. But entertainment journalists were not treated to the same old actors-on-location love story they live to report.

So they made one up. And when that proved unsupportable, they made up a different story.

``I'm not sure what rumor to believe: whether we dated each other or hated each other,'' says Perry. ``Both were put in every single newspaper in the nation for a time. I think what started that stuff was the fact that we may be the only two people in a romantic comedy in a long time who didn't date each other off screen; so everybody must assume that we hate each other. But we really don't, we had a great time working together.''

``The truth of the matter is very sad,'' Hayek confesses, ``because it's very boring. I didn't take Matthew away from Julia (Roberts, who he'd dated for a few minutes), we weren't kissing each other all around town. But we did get along, and we got along great.

Culture clash 

Well, except for the infamous knock-knock incident. In the wee hours of one particularly arduous all-night shoot, Perry tried to cheer his exhausted co-star up with one of the English-speaking world's tried and-true joke genres. Having grown up in Coatzacoalcos on Mexico's Gulf Coast, Hayek was unfamiliar with the form - and not in any mood to learn it then.

``I said `knock knock' and she turned to me and said, `What? What is it?' '' explains Perry, who was born in Massachusetts and raised in Canada. ``I guess it's an American thing. She didn't even know the format. Now, you know, you can't hate somebody for that.''

But it didn't quite end there.

``He makes some very funny joke about some TV show from when he was a little boy in Canada. So I just go, `That's very funny,' but how am I gonna laugh?'' Hayek says in her defense. ``Then he says, `You hate me! You don't think I'm funny.' I'd have to say, `No, I think you're hysterical, Matthew, everybody else is laughing. I just don't understand it.' ''

This low-intensity culture clash actually reflected ``Fools Rush In's'' on-screen events more accurately than anything else. Alex and Isabel discover that many of their personal differences are embedded in their ethnic identities. This often meant the film, which was directed by Andy Tennant (TV's ``The Amy Fisher Story''), walked a thin line between celebrating diversity and playing to stereotypes.

Fleshing it out

For Hayek, who gave up huge success on Mexican television to come to the United States, learn English and take her chances in Hollywood, it was an enjoyable challenge to turn Isabel and her family into people she understood.

``Initially, the relationships were not very clear - they were superficially touched,'' Hayek says. ``The script talked a lot about how important her family was to her, but there were very few scenes Isabel had with any of her relatives. I said, `You can't just talk about it, you have to show it.'

``So I made sure I had some scenes with Isabel's mother, little things like that,'' she continues. ``I wanted to make sure that the characters were characters and not caricatures of Hispanics.''

Method and madness

Perry, on the other hand, decided to approach the film's cultural issues cold.

``I did no preparation at all because my character has no idea about any of that stuff, so I could play it perfectly,'' he says. ``The most interesting part of it, to me, was not that they were Mexican American, but that they were a family that loved each other and were there for each other, and my character did not have that.''

Speaking of family, Perry's own father, John Bennett Perry, plays Alex's father in the movie. But enough about family. Let's discuss ``Friends,'' and the inevitable question of why it seems so hard for members of the hit sitcom's ensemble to make it in the movies.

``Everybody's favorite topic,'' Perry sighs. ``It is less scary for me because, worst-case scenario, I go back to the best job I can imagine having. I'm not just saying that to protect myself in case the movie doesn't score. I'll be having a blast on `Friends' for a long time, and I'm just as proud of being part of an ensemble show that is successful and good as I would be of being in a hit movie.''

From sex to love

For Hayek, ``Fools Rush In'' offered a chance to move beyond the sex goddess image she's established by dancing with a snake in ``From Dusk Till Dawn'' and posing in whipped cream on the cover of Los Angeles magazine.

``I fell in love with this character,'' she says. ``In typical film formulas, you either get the good girl that's so good and you just want everything good to happen to her, or she's a victim, or she's completely a villain or she's the heroine. But this is just a woman who makes a lot of mistakes, who has a lot of fears, who gives up her faith and all the things she believes in. But at the same time, you see her struggling through life with a lot of dignity, with responsibility, with strength also. And you see her grow.

``I was praying that I would get a part that I could work with,'' she adds, ``that somebody would give me a chance to show that I could do all of these things besides dancing or being pretty - which I don't think that I am, but that's a whole different story.''

A story we're going to have to get a second opinion on.

``The best way to describe that is if Chandler (Perry's wimpy `Friends' character) walked into a bar and he saw Salma Hayek, he would just start weeping, sitting in the fetal position and vomiting on her,'' Perry figures. ``He'd be so nervous to go up to her. Alex is a charming, pretty headstrong, confident guy who'd see what he wants and go after it.''

What would Perry do?

``I'm somewhere in the middle of those two,'' he admits. ``I think I would weep a little bit and then go talk to her.''

Life after `Fools'

Don't weep for Hayek. Even though she does return to dancing and looking beautiful in the TNT cable channel's upcoming live-action ``The Hunchback of Notre Dame,'' she also has a serious film drama, ``Breaking Up,'' awaiting distribution.

Meanwhile, Perry tried to make friends with another co-star for the movie ``Edwards and Hunt,'' a comedy, set in 1803, about two idiots trying to race Lewis and Clark to the Pacific Ocean. But somehow, it just didn't feel the same.

``The relationship with Chris Farley was somewhat different from the one with Salma,'' Perry deadpans. ``He is harder to hug.''

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

Photo: (1--Cover--Color) Hot & Bothered

Matthew Perry and Salma Hayek play a complicated game of love in `Fools Rush In'

(2)``I'm not sure what rumor to believe: whether we dated each other or hated each other,'' says Matthew Perry of the rumors about him and ``Fools Rush In'' co-star Salma Hayek.